Valentine (23 page)

She turned her face up to his, and he kissed her forehead. Then each eye, the apples of her cheeks, and, when Mary tilted her chin up a fraction more, his lips were gentle on hers.

Only for a moment, though, and then he let his head rest fully onto the pillow again. “Tell me what happened at the Queen.”

And so, after retrieving a cup of wine and a bit of bread for Valentine to eat, Mary sat on the edge of the bed and relayed every detail she could recall of that dreadful night, beginning with the moment she had entered the kitchen and had a tray thrust at her. Valentine appeared quite impressed when she revealed the large price on his head.

“In the end, I did not know if Hamish would harm you or protect you,” she finished. “But you were in no condition to make that decision, and I knew if I did not err on the side of caution, we could both end up dead.”

Valentine was nodding even as he swallowed the mouthful of wine. “You made the right choice, Maria. Hamish has been a good friend, but I would never ask him to choose between me and his family.”

Mary gaped at him. “You would not fault him for turning you over for the silver?”

Valentine shrugged. “I do no think he would have implicated you in any way merely for being in my company,” he hedged, picking off another piece of the hard bread and chewing it while he spoke. “I am certain Hamish would have seen that you were protected from the men hunting me.”

Mary drew a deep breath. She had withheld from Valentine only one detail of the disaster, saving it for the very end. “It wasn’t the mercenaries I worried about,” she said. “Valentine, my betrothed was part of that gathering.”

He stopped chewing and looked at her for a moment. He swallowed with some effort and said, “The man you are to marry? He was there?”

“Yes,” she said bitterly, and then reached down into the pocket of her borrowed servant’s apron and pulled out Glayer Felsteppe’s weighty purse. “I stole this from him.” She dropped the purse onto Valentine’s stomach. “It’s probably Beckham Hall’s coin, any matter.”

“I see,” he said, picking up the bag and examining it in his palm, turning it this way and that, testing its weight. “That would have indeed changed your situation greatly, had we been discovered. At least we know there is a good possibility that we will gain England before him.” Valentine gave the bag a little toss and caught it again. “Well done, Maria.”

Mary nodded absently. She didn’t really want to discuss anything at all having to do with Glayer Felsteppe at the moment. Soon, yes. Soon she would bring it up. But not now. Not while Valentine was still so weak and she so glad to be near him.

“Francisco seemed very happy when he came for me,” she offered instead. “Did he tell you?”

“About Teresa?”

“About Teresa, about Enrique—about everything.”

Valentine gave a weary smile. “Look at you, knowing so much. Yes, he did.”

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“I do no know that it is wonderful,” he said with a grimace. “But it is better than I feared when Teresa told me she wished to marry. You know he is a pirate as well, I presume.”

Mary grinned. “It’s very exciting. Your cousin cuts quite the dashing figure on deck.”

Her heart thrilled to see Valentine’s face darken. “The Deadly Bird. Bah. He is still so much a boy. Playing at pretend battles as we used to do as children.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’s playing,” Mary said, letting a touch of admiration tinge her words. “Considering the size of this ship, I can only think he’s likely very good at what he does.”

Valentine snorted and rolled his eyes. “I want my coin back from Teresa.”

Mary struggled against her smile while she scooted closer and tucked his coverings around him. “Will you rest now?”

“I am tired,” he conceded. But he grasped her wrist when she prepared to rise, and Mary’s stomach jolted at the possessive gesture. “Where have you been sleeping?” he demanded. “Francisco’s crew is—”

She cut off his words with a finger to his lips. “No one has offended me, Valentine. They’re all quite gentlemanly.” His eyes were murderous, and so she turned slightly and pointed to the narrow cot beneath the stairs. “I’ve been right here with you the entire time.”

The fight went out of him, then, and the creases in his face rearranged into a self-deprecating smile. “Is it comfortable? That little bed?”

“It’s no Snowy Owl,” she admitted.

“Would you stay with me? Here, in this bed?” he clarified. “I would keep you close while we are surrounded by such brigands.”

Mary’s heart pounded in her chest and she leaned forward to place a brief kiss on his lips and he responded, hesitant at first, as if unsure. At last, at last . . .

“I will stay anywhere you want me,” she whispered. “But first, you must tell me—what does
mi amor
mean?”

His smile was so gentle. “It means ‘my donkey.’”

Mary felt her face go slack and she sat up, staring at him.

“It is a precious endearment in my country,” Valentine explained, his lips twitching. “They are such sweet creatures, yes? So simple and helpless.”

“I am your donkey?” Mary asked, her cheeks heating. “Your
donkey?
”

Then Valentine laughed out loud and pulled her back to him. “Oh, Maria, Maria.
Mi amor
means ‘my love.’ What else could you be?”

T
he next day, Valentine felt strong enough to venture above for a slow turn about the aft castle with Maria on his arm. That night, she helped him ready a makeshift bath, although she excused herself just prior to the removal of his clothing. Valentine found that he only just stopped his request for her to stay by biting his blasted tongue. Later, she crawled into the berth with him once more, her rough servant’s underdress for a nightshift, and he welcomed her into his arms, molded her warm curves and soft, unbound breasts to his body, and they fell asleep that way.

They woke in the morn with a lingering kiss, one that stretched the bounds of Valentine’s will to such lengths that he feared he would go mad. But he managed to escape her before she dressed. That night, he was plagued with fiery dreams of Maria beneath him. The next morning, she was—and Valentine’s hands were caressing her breasts as he came fully awake.

He dropped his head to her mouth, kissed her hard and deep, but then flung himself from the berth with a growl, grabbed his shirt and boots, and stomped above deck.

He missed her sitting up in the bed, watching him go with her fingertips pressed to her mouth, curved in a slight smile.

He was consumed with thoughts of her as he strode across the deck. Her body. Her voice. Her smell. As if to reinforce her sweetness, the bilge water below sloshed and belched up its foul stench. Valentine dropped his boots to the deck and jerked his shirt over his head and then propped his hip atop a coil while he pulled on his boots. Then he leaned against the rail and looked out at the unbroken sea, gray and reflecting the overcast sky.

“We will be in sight of land by morrow’s setting sun.” Francisco had come upon him silently, or perhaps Valentine was so preoccupied by the woman below that he simply had not heard his cousin approach. Either way, it increased his crossness.

Valentine made a sound in his throat to indicate he’d heard the news. It was sooner than he’d guessed, and the realization that in as few as two days he and Maria would part turned his heart to stone.

“Have you considered my offer?” Francisco asked.

“I have,” Valentine said. “You have my blessing to marry Teresa. Where will the two of you go?”

“Back to Aragon,” Francisco said. Valentine looked at him quickly, surprised, and his cousin continued. “We both miss it so. There are plenty of impoverished estates that I might purchase. And,” he added nonchalantly, “it is a convenient place for one who makes his life on the sea, yes? Or perhaps for one who makes his life on the sea to visit?”

“That is true,” Valentine agreed. Then he sighed. “Francisco, I am no seaman. And if I am caught . . .”

“You would be killed, of course,” Francisco finished. “But that would happen if you were discovered on a ship or in whatever cave you and your friends have carved out for yourselves. I would wager you have better chance on a fast ship, with a crew to watch your back. You have nothing to do with those men’s troubles.”

“Perhaps I did not in the beginning,” Valentine conceded. “But I gave my word that I would return.”

Francisco shrugged, picked at his teeth with a little splinter of wood. “If not for you, they would already all be long dead.”

Valentine had no reply, and so he continued to stare out at the hypnotic sea. He would soon be forced to give up Maria. Should he not, for once in his life, move toward a thing for only the good of himself?

He thought of brutish Roman and his feathered companion, Lou. The embittered and withdrawn Adrian; the quiet and steadfast Constantine. His friends now, all. Even exasperating Father Victor and the handful of monks he had come to know during his incarceration at Melk. Could he really leave all of them behind and start a new life?

He would still be just as lonely without Maria.

He would still be a wanted man with no home.

But on the sea, perhaps he could begin to forget. And if he could not forget, at least no one would be there to see him mourn.

“Yes,” Valentine said suddenly.

Francisco’s head swung toward him. “Yes . . . ?”

“Yes, I will take
The Skull
.”

Francisco was silent for a moment, and then he gave a great whoop, wrapping his arm around Valentine’s shoulder and pounding his back. “You have gladdened my heart no end, cousin! This is a new beginning for us both, do you see? The legacy we shall leave for our children—a family trade, passed down from father to son.” He paused, as if thinking. “Or uncle to nephew. It does not matter!” He laughed aloud and pulled Valentine into a one-armed embrace again. “What matters is that we are reunited, reconciled, partners!” He gave a growl in the back of his throat. “I feel like stealing something!”

Francisco turned away and marched off toward the wheel, his jolly command growing fainter as he left the deck, his feather bobbing. “Roland! Roland, find me a ship!”

Valentine turned his face toward the sea again. One more night with Maria on
The Skull
. Two at most, and then they would be at her home. He would make his mark on the petition and leave her to her new life, while he departed to make a new life of his own. How would his view of the world change without her sweetness, her innocent excitement at every new thing to mellow his cynicism? Valentine doubted he would ever be at peace enough to adopt Francisco’s enthusiastic abandon. Enrique’s bitterness and greed came to his mind—perhaps that was his destiny, his own dark heritage. No delight, no spontaneity. What would be the point, without Maria to share it with him?

And would Maria be happy? Perhaps in time. Once she had the family she’d always yearned for. Perhaps she would forget about him, and he hoped that she would. She was too pure, too good, to be saddled with regret of any sort, and certainly not over a penniless criminal such as himself.

But Valentine knew that he meant something to Maria, even if her feelings were naïve. Their time together would forever be viewed as a turning point in her life. And so he would leave her with something positive to remember him by, if it was the only thing he could do for her save to set her free.

He pushed away from the railing and went looking for his bag.

Valentine kept to himself a large portion of the day, sitting removed from the bustle of the deck. It appeared to Mary as though he were trying to save the little journal he sometimes wrote in, which had been soaked in the Elbe. So she sought to keep herself entertained, which was not difficult once the sailor in the crow’s nest called down that a ship had been spotted on their horizon.

Francisco looked through his glass for what seemed to Mary to be an hour before he lowered it with a foreign expletive and then shook his head.

“No good,” he said, and then handed the long leather-wrapped cylinder to Mary. “I believe we are in the company of your future husband. Look.” He helped her fit the oculus to her eye. “Up the mast—see the flag?”

“The king’s?” Mary guessed, looking closely at the blurry red and gold crest.

“Aye, but not
the king’s
,” Francisco said. “That is the flag for those sailing under royal orders, but your king is no on that ship.”

Mary lowered the glass and looked at Francisco. “Perhaps it is someone else.”

Valentine’s cousin shook his head. “No. It is my business to know ships, to be aware of which ones are in my presence. That is the merchant ship
Dane
; it was moored downriver from us in Hamburg.”

Mary raised the glass once more and tried to discern the figures on the deck. But the distance was too great, the image too blurry. She handed the glass back to Francisco with a grimace.

“We cannot gain port before him, can we?”

Francisco shrugged, a bit of surprise in his voice. “We could overtake them, yes. But in this wind we would come close enough to shake hands with the captain. Is that a risk you wish to take?”

Mary shuddered. The thought of ever seeing Glayer Felsteppe again made her stomach turn. “No,” she said. “It doesn’t matter now, really.”

If Francisco Alesander thought her answer strange, he did not see reason to question her.

Valentine joined her not long afterward, although he did not share with her what had kept him occupied all afternoon. They ate side by side with the entirety of the crew that night, a celebratory affair that used up the remainder of the supplies aboard ship. Once she had come close enough to land to send a small boat into town,
The Skull
would replenish her sundries and perhaps take on fresh crew before once more setting out to sea. It was far too dangerous for a notorious pirate such as Francisco to bring his ship into an English harbor.

Valentine was quiet, as was Mary, and she wondered if he, too, was feeling the shadow of their imminent parting growing shorter. But he smiled at her when she caught his eye, touched her arm, the curve of her ear; once, his hand had lingered in a caress across her back.

The food was gone now, and the crew began winnowing away the remaining drink as the music started, a motley orchestra of pipes and drum and harp when Valentine leaned close to whisper, “Do you tire, Maria?”

She was not at all tired, but she knew he was asking if she was ready to withdraw to the cabin below, and to the little narrow berth they had been sharing.

Her heartbeat quickened. She was more than ready, and so she nodded.

He stood and seized the handle of a lantern and a jug of wine with one hand and then reached for hers with the other. The crew called out good-natured taunts as they retreated to the hatch. Mary’s cheeks tingled, but she didn’t mind in the least.

Valentine hung the lantern from the low ceiling and then stretched out on the bed with the wine jug. Crossing his boots at his ankles and propping himself up against the smooth wood of the cabin, he tucked a forearm behind his head and watched her fidget about the small cabin.

Mary was suddenly very nervous. She’d no idea how to begin.

“I have a gift for you,” he said.

Mary turned, feeling a smile upon her lips. “You do?”

“I wanted you to have something to remember our time together. Something I think perhaps only I can give you.” He motioned toward a little wooden pocket affixed to the wall, where it appeared a single map was rolled loosely.

“This?” she said, taking a step toward the vellum and sliding it out. It was as long as her forearm.

Valentine nodded.

Mary tugged at the thin strand of gut holding it tight and pulled at the curl with her fingers. She turned her back to the lantern and held up the vellum.

“You made me . . . a map of Antwerp?”

Valentine’s laugh was low and full of mirth. “Turn it over, Maria.”

“Oh!” She laughed nervously and felt the blush come to her cheeks again as she did as Valentine instructed. Once the page was reversed, she saw that it was sideways, and so she rotated her arms to see what was drawn there.

It was a trio of small vignettes sketched diagonally across the vellum, from corner to corner. At the top right, a large bearded man walked up a beach from the sea with a helm under his arm, a listing ship and small boat riding the charcoal waves in the background. The bottom left corner held the profile of a woman who resembled Mary, but with her hair hanging in loops of plaits behind her ears.

In the middle of the vellum, the largest sketch of all showcased a woman in a lace veil, her lips parted, her eyes wide, and Mary remembered the longing with which she had looked at Valentine that night in the old mill.

But . . . she had no recollection of those other sketches . . .

“Valentine,” she said, trying to force her voice through her constricted throat. She turned and looked at him. “Are these my parents?”

“It is the best I could do with what I remembered. The one of you, of course, is from recent memory.”

Mary looked back at the vellum and sat down on the edge of the berth. The images wavered and she blinked her eyes to clear them, felt the tears splash onto her cheeks.

“Do you like it?” he asked, his voice closer to her now, and when she turned her head, she found that he had leaned up to peer over her shoulder.

“This is . . . this is priceless to me,” she whispered.

He smiled and reached up with a hand to sweep a tear away with his thumb. “When you are returned, perhaps you can press it into a book. And then you can look upon them whenever you like. Perhaps even show your children one day what brave grandparents they had.” He paused. “What a brave mother.”

Mary let the vellum reroll gently of its own accord and her head dropped for a moment. Then she stood and replaced the portraits in the wooden pocket before turning to face the man on the bed. If she was ever to be brave, this was the moment.